


A Kind of Life (The Rosedale, Continued Remix)

by Wojelah



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 07:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4212882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wojelah/pseuds/Wojelah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.”<br/>― Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness</p><p>“Houses are cellular walls; they keep our problems from bleeding into everyone else's.”<br/>― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care</p><p>"It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years.<br/>Wasn't it, after all, a kind of life?<br/>And there were houses, he knew it, that breathed. They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human.”<br/>― Nora Roberts, Key of Knowledge</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kind of Life (The Rosedale, Continued Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tesserae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rosedale, Interrupted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153290) by [Tesserae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/pseuds/Tesserae). 



The cemetery started up, if that’s the verb to use for a resting place begun when Los Angeles was still rough-and-tumble, SUV and asphalt-free, in the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and eighty-four. The house went up ten years later, no relation. The builder just liked the idea of quiet neighbors.

The earth shook, now and again, and the house stood, more or less. 

The world went to war. Twice. And still the house stood. 

The city grew. It grew up, and around, and pressed in. And the house stood. 

The owners changed, of course. One rigged it with wiring. One ran new plumbing. A pane of glass broke here, and shutter flapped loose there. Repairs patched it together, here and there, more or less visible. A fence went up, defending a patch of green, until at last the city crept in over the fence, turning the green to concrete and the yard to dirt and detritus and the tracery of determined weeds. But the house stayed, and its walls gathered the echoes of laughter and arguments and bridal nights and one night stands, all soaked into the walls, no matter that wallpaper went up and peeled down and changed into paint. The house stood.

And then it stood empty.

It wasn’t derelict. Handymen stopped by. Painters. Electricians. But each came, and each left, and their voices were brisk and businesslike and bouncing, leaving nothing behind.

When John Sheppard walked in and closed the door behind him, setting his keys on the scarred countertop, the heat of summer was creeping into the painted wood siding, slipping past cracks in the door jamb. The house stood waiting.

\----

The first weeks brought noise, sharp and new and quick to disappear. The echo of a ballgame on the radio, heard but not listened to. The cry of a man waking from sleep, running from the memory of fire and falling. The clatter of spoon against mug at three in the morning. The muttering shout specific to the intersection of lawyers and poor cell connections. 

A futon tugged through a doorway left a scratch in the paint. An elderly card table, screws winding out of the feet, gouged the wood on the kitchen floor. The suitcases, dropped on the floor and slowly unpacked, dinging the floorboards.

A nightmare, flames and shouts and a friend’s face, spiralling down into nothing. A thrown beer bottle and an oath and a shattered window pane. 

The house held it all close, guarded against the city and the day and the night.

When John Sheppard replaced the glass - replaced the whole damn window, and then the rest as well - his last touch was an absent-minded half-apology, brushed against the frame. And the house held that, too.

\----

Noises, off.

A card, green and bright, tucked into a crack in the jamb in the kitchen. (“L.A. Farmworks.”)

The clatter of of shovels and pickaxes and wheelbarrows. Names and voices ring over the open space - Mitchell ( _Cam_ , older, deeper), and others, younger, sharper, varying with time and date. The sound of Mitchell’s wheelchair, the hiss of rims over pavement, the judder of metal over rubble.

A sketch, vivid and over-reaching, holding the house and the neighborhood and fresh, growing things, pinned to the refrigerator with the back of a magnet for cheap tax preparation, found in the mail.

The evenings grew quiet, not silent. The house filled with the sounds of sleep, not waking. It holds the grunt of aching muscles settling in to rest, the whistle of a kettle, and the ting of spoon against mug. The sharp smell of instant coffee.

When Sheppard handed Cam a mug to share, hand brushed hand - and then Sheppard reached out for the railing of the porch stairs, and paused, considering. 

\---

The house stretched. 

It pushed back against the cement. The richness of earth and the green-gold of corn overran the one-time limits of the fence. Gloves and trowels gleamed by the front door, discarded after the day's labor. Shining chrome and machinery joined the kettle on the countertop, and the coffee brewed rich and dark. The doors to the porch stood open, the windows up, and the noises off percolated inside to join the conversations with the lawyers. 

And the porch grew, extended a ramp, a beautiful thing of varnish and planking, strong and sturdy, an invitation.

Then silence.

\----

Fall crept in around the edges.

The door closed, then the windows. The voices faded, joining the other memories in the walls. The phone calls grew louder, longer. The evenings grew cooler, filled with the sounds of angry movements tightly leashed, quiet noises louder than the crash of breaking panes. Dust, dull and dun, crept in among the green of the corn.

When Sheppard left (infrequently), he took the back stairs, and the gleam on the ramp faded.

The house stilled.

\----

It was evening when tires hissed again on pavement, flashing in the half-light of the dying streetlight. 

An unexpected edge to a newly familiar voice (“For fuck’s sake, John, I _can’t_.”) 

An unexpected gift. (“Yeah, you can.” “When did you get this done?” “Week or so back. Took a little longer than I thought – we had to pull permits, so I wasn’t sure – But you haven’t been around.”) An unexpected truth.

An unexpected entrance - wheels up the ramp, taken in silence. 

The odor of garlic and chicken, clinging to the kitchen. The crack and hiss of opening beer. Conversation, of sickness and crashes and struggle. 

(““Hospital. Couple days at Cedars, couple days in a… facility.” “By yourself?” “Isn’t that how most people go to the hospital?”)

(“I promise, next time I’ll call.” “There’ll be a next time?” “You ever crash a plane? There’s always a next time.”)

And then, _then_ , the hiss of wheels over wood, the warmth of a touch at the small of the back, and the strength of a look. 

When Sheppard kindled the fire in the hearth, the tiny flame flickered, danced, and then caught, growing. The house settled, gathered it in, and shone.


End file.
